6.  The applicant was born in 1946 and lives in Novosibirsk. She receives an old-age pension.
7.  On 1 February 1998 the Law on Calculation and Adjustment of State Pensions (hereafter “the Pensions Act”) introduced a new method of calculation of retirement benefits based on what is known as the “individual pensioner coefficient” (“the IPC”). The IPC was the ratio between an individual’s wages at the time of retirement and the national average wage. The IPC was meant to maintain a link between pensions and previous earnings.
8.  The applicant considered that the Zheleznodorozhniy District Division of the Pension Fund (hereafter “the Fund”) had calculated her pension incorrectly and in August 1999 she sued the Fund for an increase of her pension in accordance with the Pensions Act.
9.  On 8 December 1999 the Zheleznodorozhniy District Court of Novosibirsk found in the applicant’s favour. The District Court held that the Fund had misconstrued the law and that the applicant’s pension should be recalculated and increased in line with an IPC of 0.7 starting from 1 December 1999. On 23 December 1999 the Novosibirsk Regional Court upheld that judgment.
10.  According to the Government, on 15 June 2000 the Fund recalculated the applicant’s pension in compliance with the judgment of 8 December 1999.
11.  On 7 August 2000 the Fund requested the Zheleznodorozhniy District Court to reopen the case owing to a newly discovered circumstance. The Fund claimed that on 29 December 1999 the Ministry of Labour and Social Development had issued an Instruction on the Application of Limitations established by the Pensions Act. The Instruction clarified how the Pensions Act should be applied. The Fund further indicated that on 24 April 2000 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation had dismissed a complaint by a group of individuals challenging the Instruction. The Supreme Court found that the Ministry of Labour had acted within its competence when it had issued the Instruction, and that the Ministry’s interpretation of the Pensions Act had been correct. The Fund contended that since it had been unaware of the Instruction and the Supreme Court’s decision of 24 April 2000 at the time of the judgment of 8 December 1999, the judgment would have to be reconsidered.
12.  On 15 August 2000 the Zheleznodorozhniy District Court granted the Fund’s request, quashed the judgment of 8 December 1999 and reopened the proceedings. The District Court applied Article 333 of the RSFSR Code of Civil Procedure according to which judgments could be reconsidered in the event of discovery of significant circumstances which were not, and could not have been, known to the party concerned. The District Court found that the Supreme Court’s judgment of 24 April 2000 could serve as such a circumstance. The decision of 15 August 2000 was final and not amenable to appeal.
13.  On the same day the Zheleznodorozhniy District Court, after a fresh examination of the case, dismissed the applicant’s action in full. On 7 December 2000 the Novosibirsk Regional Court upheld the judgment.
14.  On 1 July 2004 the applicant received a letter from the Fund. The letter read as follows:
“In response to your inquiry on 21 June 2004 [we] inform you that by its judgment of 8 December 1999 the Zheleznodorozhniy District Court ordered that the Zheleznodorozhniy District Division of the Pension Fund in Novosibirsk should recalculate your pension starting from 1 December 1999.
On 8 December 1999 a writ of execution was issued on the basis of that judgment.
The enforcement of that court judgment on the basis of the above-mentioned writ of execution had not been carried out because there were no funds”.